SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Doutor Nichires Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Doutor Nichires Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Doutor Nichires Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Doutor Nichires Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Doutor Nichires Holdings operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Doutor Nichires Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Doutor Nichires Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Doutor Nichires Holdings
Strengths of Doutor Nichires Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Innovation driven organization
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.
Learning organization
- Doutor Nichires Holdings is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Doutor Nichires Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Doutor Nichires Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Doutor Nichires Holdings in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Doutor Nichires Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Doutor Nichires Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Doutor Nichires Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Doutor Nichires Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Restaurants
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Restaurants industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Doutor Nichires Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Restaurants industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Doutor Nichires Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Doutor Nichires Holdings a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Doutor Nichires Holdings staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Doutor Nichires Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Doutor Nichires Holdings has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses of Doutor Nichires Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Doutor Nichires Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Doutor Nichires Holdings to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Doutor Nichires Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Doutor Nichires Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Doutor Nichires Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Doutor Nichires Holdings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Doutor Nichires Holdings is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Doutor Nichires Holdings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Restaurants industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Doutor Nichires Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Doutor Nichires Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Doutor Nichires Holdings is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Restaurants industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Doutor Nichires Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Doutor Nichires Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Restaurants industry over the last five years. Doutor Nichires Holdings even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ less understanding of Doutor Nichires Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Doutor Nichires Holdings don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Doutor Nichires Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Loyalty marketing
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Doutor Nichires Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Doutor Nichires Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Restaurants industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Doutor Nichires Holdings in the Restaurants industry. Now Doutor Nichires Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Doutor Nichires Holdings to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Doutor Nichires Holdings can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Doutor Nichires Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Doutor Nichires Holdings to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Doutor Nichires Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Restaurants sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Doutor Nichires Holdings to increase its market reach. Doutor Nichires Holdings will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Doutor Nichires Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Doutor Nichires Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Doutor Nichires Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Doutor Nichires Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Doutor Nichires Holdings are -
Environmental challenges
– Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Doutor Nichires Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants industry.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Doutor Nichires Holdings.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Doutor Nichires Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Restaurants industry are lowering. It can presents Doutor Nichires Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Restaurants sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Doutor Nichires Holdings can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Restaurants industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Doutor Nichires Holdings demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Restaurants industry and other sectors.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Doutor Nichires Holdings in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Doutor Nichires Holdings in Restaurants industry. The Restaurants industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Doutor Nichires Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Restaurants industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Doutor Nichires Holdings can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Doutor Nichires Holdings prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Doutor Nichires Holdings to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Doutor Nichires Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.